These creamy, frozen pineapple peach margaritas are just the thing for hot summer evenings.

Somehow a whole month has passed without me sharing a recipe, and it’s felt like no time at all! I didn’t intend to take such a break, and I’ve been sitting on these scrumptious margaritas for quite some time, but one thing after another kept piling up. I’ve been hard at work on some exciting freelance projects that I can’t wait to tell you about as soon as I’m able!

For today, though, I’m offering a simple, sweet, and creamy libation. These pineapple peach margaritas are made with ripe summer peach, frozen pineapple, fresh-squeezed orange and lime juice, and a splash of cream or coconut milk. I like a mix of sea salt and raw sugar for the rim, which helps strike an ideal and refreshing balance between sweet and salty tastes.

If you’re looking for a uniquely delicious drink to ring in the new year, this smoky maple margarita is just the ticket!

If you celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful and Christmas and a fabulous first night of Hanukkah! My mom flew down to Chattanooga and arrived on Christmas Eve, and we have been having the best time hanging out with my in-laws and nieces. The girls are beyond excited because they got a trampoline yesterday. In between eating all the holiday treats, it was really nice to bounce a bit.

Today I’m just popping in quickly to let you know that I’m sharing a recipe for a smoky maple margarita over on SoFabFood. It’s pretty much a classic margarita with two important upgrades: it’s sweetened with maple syrup and laced with smoked paprika. It’s not enough to make the drink spicy, but just enough to give it an enticing smoky flavor and aroma that’s perfect for this time of year. Wishing you and yours a fabulous and delicious 2017!

These festive pomegranate vanilla bean margaritas are sweet and just a tad sour, with extra richness thanks to the vanilla.

How was your Thanksgiving? To be honest, over here we’ve had better. One of my fiancé’s brothers was in an accident the night before Turkey Day and is still in the hospital. We spent the morning with him at the hospital yesterday and my fiancé slept there last night. He’s going to be okay, but it’s been quite a scare. We were planning to drive down to Atlanta for a big gathering with Ben’s extended family, but ended up staying here in Chattanooga and grabbing a quick restaurant Thanksgiving at Beast and Barrel’s buffet (it was delicious, but I missed getting to cook!). My future niece has also been sick, so I think we have a Thanksgiving redo in the works for Saturday or Sunday.

After all of that, I’m totally ready for a pomegranate vanilla bean margarita. And after a hard day of Black Friday shopping, I bet you will be, too! (By the way, my absolute favorite kitchen gadget, the Instant Pot, is on sale for just $68.95 today! It’s the one thing I bought last year on Black Friday and I use it all the time. Highly recommended as a gift for yourself or others who love to cook and/or save time.)

A few years ago, Ben and I hosted Thanksgiving at our apartment in Boston. I had just started grad school, and I invited all my classmates (60 total) to come if they weren’t able to travel home for the holiday. Ten of them accepted and my mother came, too, so we had a good-sized crowd. It’s the only time I’ve hosted Thanksgiving so far and it was so much fun. Ben made most of the savory dishes, although I did contribute a sweet potato and kale gratin, and I was in charge of dessert. I was also in charge of drinks, and decided to make these cranberry margaritas. I added a tiny splash of vanilla extract, and they were a huge hit. We had beer, wine, and other spirits available, but no one drank anything other than our featured cocktail!

Grapefruit jalapeño margaritas sweetened with honey are perfect for Cinco de Mayo! Tequila quickly infused with jalapeños gives these just the right amount of kick.

How do you feel about spicy cocktails? I’m pretty much obsessed, and these grapefruit jalapeño margaritas are my current drink of choice. I hope this doesn’t make me sound insufferably picky, but I’m starting to feel the same way about non-spicy cocktails that I feel about non-salted desserts. If my sweets are not salted or my cocktail doesn’t pack a punch, I’d almost rather go without. The depth of flavor that the jalapeños give these margaritas really makes them for me.

That being said, I aim to please, and you can definitely skip the chiles and just make a delicious grapefruit margarita if spicy drinks are not your thing. It’s easy to make some margaritas spicy and some not according to each person’s tastes. Ben took a sip of my spicy margarita and declared it “interesting”, but preferred the plain grapefruit ones I made per his request.

The inspiration for these grapefruit jalapeño margaritas comes from my friend Lauren, who shares amazing gluten-free recipes over at Wicked Spatulaand has quite an impressive array of creative margaritas. If you read my site often, you may remember that we swapped guest posts back in the fall. Last weekend, we met in real life for the first time! Lauren lives about a three-hour drive from me, and we decided to meet up at her place and road trip together all the way up to Pittsburgh to go to a workshop led by Jessica Merchant of How Sweet Eats.